Already a memory

It has been a tremendous relief to me, over the past few years, to hone the ability to think of "Christmas" as not just one day but as really a series of events and experiences that unfold over the course of about a week. Certainly the building up to that, starting just after Thanksgiving, constitutes the Christmas season, but I just mean the focus, the point of all that preparation is that central week (and not just that one big day). This has helped me not feel depressed when the day itself is over in a flash.

Christmas, then, starts after we are out of school for winter break. With Christmas late in the week, it meant that break started on Monday which was another detail that helped make it possible to relax, enjoy, and still get things done. Step One was the baking and construction of our annual gingerbread houses. After about 12 years or so of doing these, I've found that rolling the dough thin thin thin (in the 1/8" neighborhood) works best -- but I'll note that the recipe I use bakes up super sturdy (even though it is made with all-edible ingredients, once you bake it there's no eating it -- it's just too hard).

I've also got the royal icing down so that it does set up pretty quickly, which is a more important detail if you're working with children since the waiting-to-decorate part is the hardest.


Dean went fairly free-form this year; sometimes he's more about the candy and other details, but this year he was just having a great time with the piping bags. Another critical ingredient to success (for me, anyway) in making gingerbread houses with a child is changing what you're idea of 'perfect' means. I used to be aiming for Martha, to be honest, but now I believe with all my heart that perfection is having a wonderful time and having your child eager for the experience again next year (and I believe these are two very opposite ends of the scale).

I need to remember to pick up another small string of LED lights; I only have one and we decided not to run it between the two houses and instead decided to ditch the lights. I do like how they look when they are lit from within, but even without that detail I'm delighted with how these turned out. And they smell wonderful!

We developed the tradition over the years of opening our gifts from far away family and friends on Christmas Eve. This both helps us truly focus on these dear people and the special things they've sent, and it also helps Dean deal with the incredible excitement and anticipation that's at a fever pitch by the 24th.

You could have heard a pin drop when Dean opened his gift from Gina and her family. Gina regularly spoils Dean with bountiful packages full of football (soccer) magazines, the likes of which just are not available here in the states -- in fact, this Christmas parcel also included several fabulous ones that came with a hat, and a calendar, and stickers (they give away a lot of premiums in those English mags!). But to have sent him an official Liverpool jersey was beyond our wildest dreams. Dean shares Liverpool love with Gina and her family, but we can never thank them enough for such an amazing gift. Dean is looking forward to wearing it to school next week! Another tale of the miracle of blogging, and the incredible connections to people whom we never otherwise would know or treasure....

Dean also received some beautiful books from family, and dug right into those that evening. Eventually, though, it was time for bed and a few other family traditions.

In about 1967, my mom designed an advent calendar; she made one for our family and one that was raffled off in the church bazaar. Pockets with tiny felt figures, one to be drawn out and placed on the tree each night of Advent, with Santa to be drawn and placed on the 24th. Although these calendars are ubiquitous now, they certainly weren't back then and my mom's design was entirely original. This is my re-making of her design -- a few of the felt figures are her originals and the rest I remade from memory (or added my own).

Stockings hung by the chimney with care,

with a cookie for Santa and carrot for his reindeer.

Apparently the offerings, as well as the relative goodness of each of us during the course of the year, were enough to merit some very full stockings on Christmas morning! Those, of course, get opened and enjoyed first.

Dean's dog robe was one of his gifts last year. He made his way slowly and thoughtfully through his gifts, with one surprise gift to both Dean and Ken from me --


Rockband! Neither had asked for it but it has turned out to be a big hit all around. I love those kinds of gifts -- the ones you weren't even thinking of but love.

After presents, our traditional Christmas breakfast of eggnog french toast. We have a lot of special meals, including fish on Christmas Even (shrimp, and then swordfish this year) and then a big dinner Christmas night (maple and dijon glazed roast pork). Appetizers mid-day, enjoyed amidst the toys and treats just received.

(Don't worry -- it only looks as though the tall candle is too close to the figures hanging from the wreath on the chandelier!)

Had to try my hand at Rockband (and part of Biscuit's stocking contents are there on the floor...).

I received some lovely gifts, and amongst my favorites are this set of cookie cutters (isn't the packaging wonderful?). I was delighted with the number of Etsy/blogland gifts that made it under the tree.

And the cutters themselves. SO looking forward to a batch of gnomes.

We had snow, and warmth, and good cheer. And I think we'll do it all again in about a year -- with the note that we really, truly, and totally are going to aim to have all the gifts wrapped by Thanksgiving. Really. We mean it this time.

Love and joy, come to you

Wishing you peace, fulfillment, good humor, dreams realized and dreams of what lies ahead.

Trying

For a while there was a poster or plaque you could buy that said something along the lines of "if the three wise men had been women they would have asked for directions, arrived on time, and brought practical gifts" or something like that. Amen. Here's to the sisterhood of women who make the holidays happen.

Moose!

Kinda looks like a shepherd in the Christmas Pageant, doesn't he? In fact, he is Ibn Rushd, a scholar of 12th century Spain whose work in establishing the idea that faith and reason could co-exist was pivotal in sparking the European renaissance of the 15th century. His own lifetime was lived during the earlier (12th century) renaissance, centered in the Arab world, of which few Western children ever learn. The picture was taken Tuesday night, at the "Alhambra Banquet" where each member of his class presented what they had learned about the person he or she studied, where we sat on low cushions on the floor to eat a middle eastern feast, and where every single person in the room learned things he or she did not know before.

I LOVE our school.

And today, I'm working feverishly to prepare for our first Christmas feast, which takes place tomorrow when family comes to visit and celebrate. That I put placecards and decoration before, say, vacuuming and scrubbing the bathroom drives Ken a little crazy, but I know it will all get done. And I'd rather suffer the indignity of a few dustbunnies than a holiday table that hardly seems set.

Baked a chocolate pie this morning and am prepping the foods that I can for tomorrow. Making fresh pizza for dinner tonight, too. Whenever I feel myself starting to get panicky I just turn the holiday music up a little louder and remind myself that enjoying it is the most important part.

No, I didn't make her, but I did make...


...this little banner for above the kitchen sink. Most of our snow has gone but a big storm is brewing, I hear. The banner says "Merry Moose" -- hard to explain why we refer to Christmas as 'moose' in our house, but I think you can roll with me on this one.

Love and joy, come to you!

Wonderland

Beginning to look a lot like Christmas

The day after Thanksgiving, I switch over to Santa Mickey to keep track of how quickly time is slipping by.

Can I just say that getting the guys on board with getting the tree over the weekend after Thanksgiving this year (when the weather was unseasonably warm, not a flake of snow had fallen, and we had our pick of trees) was one of the best things we've done so far this year?

Because here's how things look around here now, after yesterday's storm. It was significant enough to give us the day home from school, so we got out the sled, the baking sheets, the flour and sugar and chocolate chips and really took advantage.

Dean's sled run requires a real leap of faith and of physics -- straight down to launch.

A bunch of cards are in the mail, many packages have been sent, the tree is up, and the day-to-day compromises around deciding what really needs to get done, what can wait, and what can be taken off the list feel a little less harrowing to me right now.

Memory lane

I came across this picture today; it was taken in August 2004, in the week before school started. Dean and I had gone to a local pond for some quality mother/son fishing time, and a photographer for a local newspaper happened upon us. She told us the photos would make the paper "for sure!" because a mother/son fishing combo was unusual. We did make the paper, and they ran it a couple of different days (slow time for news, I guess).

We're gearing up for a less unusual mother/son activity -- our annual gingerbread house baking and decorating. We neither of us have it in our hearts to try ice-fishing, and I'd rather not have a reporter happen upon us in the yard when we're doing archery or shooting the bb-gun (some tongues do wag over that sort of thing), but I'm trying to think of some other fun outdoor things we can do together as the weather turns cold. We've got a gorgeous toboggan but haven't found a good local hill yet (I've got to work on that!). I'm thinking about snowshoeing but would like to find some used ones.

He's only marginally interested in crafting, but maybe I can enlist his help with the holiday banner I've got in the works.

Do you worry about what your child(ren) will remember about you when they grow up? I hope some of this stuff sticks, and not just my less-than-ideal parenting moments.

Happy Birthday

Biscuit is 2 today. In human years. Ken's not speaking to him because B. was up barking at 3:45 this morning, but Dean and I both believe there were coyotes in the yard. Seems like a good reason to bark, even if the timing was inconvenient.

He can be a pain, but he loves when Dean wraps him up in a blankie....

In other news, we managed yesterday to get a handful of Christmas lights up on 2 of the bushes in front of our house -- no blood was shed, and our marriage appears to have remained intact. No small feat. We're headed out to get the tree this afternoon. I've never done so much Christmas stuff in November, but we've got a crazy-busy month ahead of us and we'll have family coming for a visit in a few weeks. In the way-behind department, I'm just getting around today to switching out the summer clothes for the winter ones....

But that's in the moments I'm stealing from this year's polar bear production. Photos soon!

So thankful

Although I did not have time to polish the silver this year and used the everyday stainless instead, I did make sure I took the time to make the butter molds (because Dean loves them so)...
and I did get the linens ironed...

and placecards made and the table set. My grandpa used to bring us foil-wrapped chocolate turkeys from Fannie Mays (a Chicago institution) so I make sure to find some kind of chocolate turkey for Dean every year (not as easy to do as it should be). Dean even read the blessing this year.

And so all-in it was a successful Thanksgiving. I've got the meal down to a science -- easy with the combination of 20+ years of experience and a husband who really loves exactly the same dishes every year. And I spent more time than usual thinking thoughts of thankfulness. Better that way.

Finally figured it out

Dean (who was kind enough to take this photo for me out of the car window as we drove home from school last week) is relieved, as am I, that all the wild turkeys in the neighborhood finally seem to have gotten the memo about Thanksgiving and are laying low. They'd been prancing around without care, right in broad daylight, right on front lawns. "Maybe we need to put out a little dish of gravy to wise 'em up," I said, but luckily it didn't come to that.

And, I, too, seem to have gotten with the program. "Hey, maybe if I stop complaining about the fact that I'm so far behind in the holiday department and use that energy instead to start doing things then I'll feel better!" And what do you know? It's working!

Tote bags that fold up and can be tucked into your regular bag so that you're never without your own reusable shopping bag have been high on my to-do list for a while now, and I finally got out fabric and sewing machine and got to work.

I even went so far as to modestly decoupage a nice tin and have placed one of these bags inside, and tied it with a ribbon -- all ready for the staff gift exchange at work. Gosh that feels good. I wish I'd thought about the tin option earlier in the year, only because I know we recycled a few of these. I'm liking the idea, though, of converting them as I go so that I have alternative wrapping solutions ready at hand.

So even though Thanksgiving will be here before I know it, and I'm not quite in the place I'd like to be yet (no ironing done, no silver polished, no butter pats made, no rolls nor appetizers made and in the freezer yet), I'll get there one way or another and I'll simplify as necessary to make it happen. Feels better just being able to say that.

OH -- and I keep forgetting: Ken told me last week that on a radio news report he heard that sales at Joann Fabrics are up 18% over this time last year, and that the company attributes it to more people making Christmas presents! I attribute it to blogland -- truly I do! How wonderful is that?

And I just now remembered one more thing I wanted to share. Dean needed a plain, flat bedsheet to bring to school for a project (it will get made, by him, into a costume suitable for depicting a person who lived in the Middle East during the middle ages -- back when the Arab world was thoughtfully, purposefully holding onto great ideas and recorded history, after Rome burned and the darkness took over Europe). There was no such thing as an extra plain sheet in the closet to give him but I had the brilliant idea of stopping at Salvation Army on the way home from his Saturday morning soccer game. Brilliant for me, anyway, because I don't usually have reasons to thrift but I could just picture unused sheets, in packages, waiting for us there. Yup! Not only did I score the sheet for him, but I also found a never-used, vintage muslin sheet and it's gorgeous -- great hand, so ready to be made into...something. All for $5.

Sharing with you

I found a pretty incredible source for beautiful wooden toys and other delights and I hope you give yourself the gift of checking it out. Many of their things would make wonderful gifts for adults.

I recently discovered Anuna, and bought their Christmas Songs cd, thanks to Isabella online (another great source for cool gifts). Anuna has a bunch of stuff on YouTube, if you'd like to get a sense of what they are all about. I confess that I am playing it already -- the Christmas cd -- and find it soothing. I already have a sense of hopelessness about the season -- that there is no way I can ever possibly have my act together. But the cd is reminding me about the beauty of it.

Did you see Bethany's Thanksgiving banner tutorial? It's her Nov. 5 post -- can't get the link to go directly there. Sheer genius, as always.

What's your hand?

What I saw on my walk

Wasn't that long ago, right?

Somehow I'm making up a rule that says I can still post about a holiday as long as I'm less than a week away from it. Not sure why I think I need to get all rule-y or anything, but I guess I feel the need to justify being so far behind. But we did have a glorious Halloween!

Every year it seems the prospect of making the time to deal with the pumpkins is just overwhelming; buying them is easy, gutting and carving them on a week night after dinner always seems so hard. But then, once we just buckle down and do it we remember that it's not so bad and in fact we enjoy it. A lot. (Dean has gotten pretty good at gutting his own pumpkin, which does help.)

And this year Dean was Bond. James Bond. Daniel Craig as James Bond. Never had such an easy costume to make! I had the idea to check eBay for a kid's tux and found one brand new, in the wrapper, for less (um, more than one-third less) than I spent on fabric last year. Not that I don't absolutely love making his costumes for him because I do, but this did take a lot of stress and expense out of the whole enterprise, and he did look marvelous if I do say so myself.

He went trick or treating, as always, with his buddy Max who looked just exactly like the UPS man. They were a great pair. Came back with lots of loot, and Dean gave about 2/3's of his haul to his other friend who was too sick to go out that night. (H1N1, or I-L-I [influenza-like-illness], I'll be so glad when you are out of here.)

And I'm just too proud of his accomplishments not to say -- Dean's managed in his last two games to get the ball past the keeper and into the net. The upper photo was from a very tough game that they lost, and the bottom is from a game in which Dean's was the only goal so he did it for his team. He's having a wonderful time, getting more confident with each game. We open a new season of indoor soccer this Saturday at 7 a.m., and close out the current outdoor season in the afternoon. Not sure how two games in one day will go (or how I'll get his uniform clean in between) but hoping he continues to love the sport.

Happy almost Halloween

One more sleep, 4 more meals, 1 soccer game, and 5 dog walks til Halloween. We're ready, thanks to the Halloween Parade and Assembly at school today!

Thanks for the kind words on my last post; makes me want to get out a little more thoughtfully with my camera and explore the world I think I know.